


Shortest Distance Between Two Points

by KagekaNecavi



Series: Crossed Paths [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Death, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e09 Miller's Crossing, M/M, Pre-Slash, Wraith Feeding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 17:38:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KagekaNecavi/pseuds/KagekaNecavi
Summary: John expected Rodney to volunteer to be the one to sate Todd’s hunger. He’s vaguely suspicious when Rodney doesn’t, when Rodney leaves after delivering the news that Todd is going to die and that means Jeannie will, too, just like Wallace’s daughter, but maybe Rodney knew that John would say no. Maybe he’d thought through that argument already and come to the conclusion that John would refuse.Not that a ‘no’ has ever stopped Rodney before.-Despite being in a series with Forbidden Paths, these two fics can be read in any order - they are not sequential and are actually two separate, alternate endings to the same episode. Given the similarities though and the fact that they were both inspired by the same tumblr post, I thought they should go in a series together.





	Shortest Distance Between Two Points

**Author's Note:**

> The warnings on this fic are deliberately ambiguous. Please see end notes for detailed trigger and squick warnings, and if you need to know who dies. Despite being in a series with Forbidden Paths, these two fics can be read in any order - they are not sequential and are actually two separate, alternate endings to the same episode. Given the similarities though and the fact that they were both inspired by the [same tumblr post](http://kagekanecavi.tumblr.com/post/164610394479/buffycuddlespigs-kagekanecavi), I thought they should go in a series together.

 

Rodney makes sure the conversation with John is short and sweet. Todd the Wraith is starving, yes he really needs food, Jeannie is gonna die, too. He had considered trying to talk John into letting him be the one Todd would feed on, but when he tried to really get in John's head for the conversation he knew that wouldn't work. John would say no. It would pain him to do so, but in the end what Rodney means to Atlantis means more to John than Jeannie does.

Well, that isn’t true for Rodney. Jeannie is far more important than Rodney and what Rodney can do - though he'll never admit it out loud. Besides, he needs to fix this. It’s his responsibility.

Before John can do anything stupid like send Todd back to Pegasus, Rodney quickly throws together a plan. He stops by his quarters and scribbles out a few quick notes, shoving them in his pockets, and then gets on his computer and on the servers to find out where the nearest Zats are. He finds them easily enough, both in cyber and in real space, and goes to where he knows Todd is held.

The guards aren't expecting an attack from anyone but Todd, so Rodney manages to take them all by surprise, hitting each with the Zat quickly and efficiently. The time that Rodney has been putting in recently on the range and on in training with Ronon, Teyla, and John has really paid off. Not that they'll ever find out that Rodney’s actually been learning. He drags the guard from outside the door inside, making sure none of the marines look all that uncomfortable where they’re laying, then steals the set of keys that goes with Todd’s special handcuffs.

“Dr. McKay,” Todd says, puzzled and weary, watching him.

“I'm here for you to feed on me. You can fix the code quickly enough to save my sister. I can’t. So it just makes sense,” Rodney shrugs. He puts the Zat well out of Todd’s reach and goes over to him, standing as straight and proud as he can manage.

“Does Sheppard know you’re here?” Todd asks after a moment of watching Rodney.

“No. I didn’t even tell him I was thinking about doing this. What does he have to do with this, anyway?” This isn’t any of Sheppard’s business. Radek will be a … well, not a perfect replacement for Rodney because Radek hates going off-world, but he’ll do fine in the city, and they’ll easily be able to find someone to replace him on the gate team. Maybe they’ll even get someone more like Sam - someone who already has a military background and who can keep up with Teyla, John, and Ronon much easier.

“If I were to do something he doesn’t like, he would very likely kill me. So he has a great deal to do with this.”

Rodney frowns. He hadn’t expected the fucking  _Wraith_  to wimp out on him. “Of course not, but technically we don’t know what he would say to this, do we? I never asked him if I could. And besides, it’s not like he’s going to feed anyone else to you. It’s me or no one.”

Todd nods and then lifts up his hands. They’re bound tightly. Rodney smiles a little. “I thought of that,” he gestures with the keys he lifted off the guard and goes to unlock Todd, who places his hand on Rodney’s chest immediately. It’s difficult to suppress the urge to flinch, but Rodney manages it.

“This is going to be very, very painful. Any last words?” Todd asks, face close to Rodney’s and voice low. Rodney has a near hysteric thought that if they were both human Rodney would peg the body language as almost flirty, but considering what’s about to happen that’s just fucking insane.

“I’ve got notes for Shep- for John and for Atlantis in my pockets. Make sure they get them. Please.”

“I will do so,” Todd says, and then he presses harder and pain tears through Rodney like a living thing, breaking him apart molecule by molecule. It’s like being burned alive and frozen to death all while being suffocated, and it goes on for an eternity. Briefly he wonders if his brush with Ascension will do anything for him now, and then everything goes dark.

* * *

 

By the time John figured it out, it was too late. He had been about to go try to convince Wallace to sacrifice himself, and then he knew, somehow deep down and as surely as he knew anything, that Rodney had gone to Todd. He changed directions and sprinted to where the Wraith was being held but by the time he got there Rodney was a dried out dead husk and Todd was as healthy as anything.

John had needed to be sedated afterwards.

By the time John woke up, Todd was already back on Atlantis and the doctors were taking Jeannie off the medicine that put her into the medical coma and allowing her to come out of it. It would still be a few hours before she woke, but she would be fine when she got up, they said.

Well, except for the fact that her stupid, arrogant older brother was fucking dead and was never fucking coming back.

And he’d left John a fucking  _note_. A note! How fucking cliché was that! When he’d first seen it John had snatched it up and nearly ripped it to bits, furious at Rodney’s stupid, selfish sacrifice. Didn’t he know what might happen without him? Didn’t he know that Atlantis wouldn’t survive without him, and if Atlantis went down so might all of Pegasus - and maybe the Milky Way after that?!

But he managed to restrain himself. He knew he’d regret it later if he destroyed the last thing Rodney had left him.

Still, though. It took him several hours before he could bring himself to read it, sitting next to Jeannie and waiting for her to wake up.

 

> John,
> 
> I know you’ll be angry, but she’s my sister. I had to. You don’t mention family, but you talk about not leaving people behind enough that I think you might understand.
> 
> I’m not sorry I did it, but I am sorry I did it behind your back, and I’m sorry for what you’re going to go through. But if I’d asked you would have said no.
> 
> Rodney

 

Though very few things in Atlantis were handwritten, John had become familiar with Rodney’s scrawl over the last few years and this looked rushed, like he’d been moving quickly. He probably had been - it hadn’t taken long for John to figure things out, and if it had taken Rodney too much longer then maybe Rodney would be alive now. He folded the letter back up and wiped his eyes a little, surprised at how much they’d watered.

He’d just begun contemplating if he had time to see if someone would go get him some coffee or something when Jeannie woke with a small gasp. She glanced around and frowned. “Colonel Sheppard?”

“Yeah. I’ve been told that the nanites in your blood should all be inert and you should be fine. How do you feel?” John asked, trying to distract her for just a moment. The whole time he was there he’d been trying to figure out the right way to break the news and he couldn’t think of it.

“Okay. Kinda … off, but okay. Medical comas are weird,” she gave him a little smile and John nodded.

“Yeah, they are at that.”

“Where’s Mer? I am never letting him forget about this one for … basically ever,” Jeannie was already starting to sit up. Guess she really did feel okay.

John held out a hand to stop her from getting out of bed. He shook his head a little. “I … I’ve got some really bad news.”

* * *

Several months later - or 48,000 years later depending on your point of view - John Sheppard finds himself in a dead Atlantis on a dying planet. He’d felt dead inside since Rodney had been drained by Todd, so he figures that this is a fitting fucking ending for him. A pointless death in a city that looks like it had been abandoned centuries ago.

He can find no food and no water, and after the first day he gives serious consideration to just eating his gun. It would be quick and fairly painless. But something urges him to, for the first time since he had tried to teach Rodney to do it, meditate and find his center the way the pseudo-Ancient hippies from the time-dilation field had.

It fills the time, and just before he passes out one last time, he swears he can almost feel Rodney there with him, can almost see the light of an Ascended being. But then consciousness leaves him fully, and he, like Atlantis herself, will never again awaken.

 

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic Rodney doesn’t even give John the chance to say no - he just goes and talks Todd into feeding off of him. Rodney dies. There is a short scene with Jeannie and John afterwards, and then John dies during the events of the episode The Last Man, because the only person who thought he was still alive is gone. However, when both John and Rodney die there are hints regarding Ascension and I would consider the ending somewhat bittersweet - heavy on the bitter, light on the sweet - one, with the possibility that they have both Ascended and are together again being left open.
> 
> Mention/discussion of suicide.
> 
> Not triggery or squicky, just spoilery:  
> Sorry if Todd seems a bit off - his characterization in the show seems to be “what's going to benefit me most at any given time" when he's actually written well, so I had a bit of a hard time with him.
> 
> There are two major tense shifts in the fic at the line breaks. This is intentional. I was being a little experimental. The tense shifts indicate when someone is going to die. That is, in this fic the present tense indicates no future to look back on the events from. Any minor tense shifts are mistakes and are the result of 1- writing it mostly on my phone and 2 - editing it myself at 2am on Labor Day when I probably should have been sleeping.


End file.
